Case Study – COMAH Exercise  

           Exercise Phantom 10th December 2013

Syngenta, Huddersfield, hosted a table top exercise on Tuesday 10th December 2013 to test the COMAH Off-Site Emergency Plan for neighbouring Hanson Logistics. The exercise was prepared through a multi-agency Exercise Planning Group.

The majority of organisations with a key actions section in the Off-Site Plan participated in the exercise, while a number of observers from various agencies also attended.

The exercise scenario was prepared by Hanson’s Logistics and developed by the Exercise Planning Group. As recommended in the Regulations, the scenario was based upon the worst case scenario as identified in the site safety report.

GRP2 was deployed in both Bronze and Silver  and was used effectively to communicate the common operational picture to all players. Site specific information had been loaded onto the system beforehand while further data was added ‘live’ during the exercise.

For the first time, the Environment Agency also operated the system from their offices in The Lateral, Leeds.

The exercise simulated a major fire at Hanson’s and involved dealing with risks to the surrounding community and environment as well as the incident itself.